If you need support, understanding, and love, let us know here.

@ghandigirl

You did it! You heard the voices of love and spirit and all your many angels.

Yes yes yes. Don't give up. Healing part by part from your heart to your many parts your many hurting hearts.

The trauma was not in vain as awful horrible no good terrible as such trauma is. Never ever ever ever your fault. 

 I called your name and your spirit along with the others.

You heard. You felt goodness and mercy and compassion for far too long  Suffering you! Believe that peace is real. That there is an end to seemingly endless heartbreak and suffering. That love..real love is your birthright and here now for you.

We love you.

Hello everyone, I need your help.  Although it is something trivial, I can't do this alone.

I started smoking again over the Holidays.  2 years after stopping smoking, I picked it up again. It seems to be a cycle with me.  I start smoking every 2 years after stopping.

I stopped on Monday, it went well until last night.  I had a moment of weakness and got myself another pack of cigarettes.  I will try to stop again tomorrow.

Whenever I had a craving, I would tell myself it will only last a couple of minutes and say the serenity prayer.  It was going well until it didn't.  I remind myself of how yucky I feel since starting again.

I need light, prayers, will power, resolve, discipline, detox, to love and forgive myself, and I don't know what else.

Thanks for your help!

@bright-opal

You are definitely in my prayers and I will send you light and love.

I am a former smoker. One day I noticed that when I would lie down in bed at night I would feel like I was choking a bit (flegm)...then I noticed it when I would wake up. I continued to smoke. Then one night I awoke to tapping on the window behind me. I felt it was Archangels and the hawk spirit of my newly departed Shahman friend letting me know I needed to stop smoking. So one day I got the tapping again and I stopped. Well, of course the choking feeling went away the next night.

It didn't hurt to visualize (as I smoked) the smoke making my lungs black. So I will send the light, but also send yourself the light into your lungs. ? ? ❤️ ❤️ ? 

@ghandigirl - holding you in love and light. I know how hard it can be to deal with bipolar/cyclothymia, not myself but loved ones. Take great comfort in knowing that your hyper-self-awareness will protect you and also those around you. The ancient Greeks created the concept of catharsis - releasing negative emotions in a socially appropriate way. To some extent, this forum can serve as an outlet, so keep us posted on how you're doing. Not everyone's brain is wired normally, and bipolar has a strong biochemical component to it. By acknowledging this truth to yourself, you are creating a better outcome too.

@BrightOpal - they say nicotine is worse than opiates. Similarly to what I'm saying to GhandiGirl, keep acknowledging the biochemical aspects of this addiction. Maybe you should try the patch (you can cut them up if they're too strong).  I never smoked, but both of my parents were chimneys as I grew up (so I have asthma and learning disabilities, they do not), both of them quit, but not until a life-threatening scenario made them (in both cases, illness, hospitalization, being told by doctor to quit or die). Again, your self-awareness is what will keep something similar from happening to you. Maybe also hypnosis might be a help? Or at the least, maybe when you get a craving, instead of taking 5 minutes to smoke, take 5 minutes to meditate. Maybe just focusing on breathing will help.  Hang in there, it's a tough addiction to kick completely. And rest assured knowing it's biochemical, and not a character flaw.

❤️ ? ❤️ ? 

I'd like to ask for some light and love for my friend's dog Lilli.  Her owner has been my friend for over 60 years. Lilli had an infection which was taken care of, but then the dog wasn't acting right - she started dropping weight and became very lethargic. My friend took her to the vet, which is some sort of clinic situation - so you don't always see the same vet. The vet blew her off totally, told her there is nothing wrong with the dog's weight (7 pounds down on a Weimaraner in a couple of weeks) and the dog is fine. Then Lilli started coughing horribly. Two friends recommended the Sage Clinic in San Francisco. Long story short, Lilli has a huge tumor in her chest. She is a young dog; she is being operated on Friday, and now she is in good hands. But my friend is very upset because she feels like she lost three weeks because of this bozo. So please send Lilli some healing vibes if you can.  Thank you so much.

Healing sent to little lily who feels as small as a puppy right now and  knows she is loved. 

Holding your friend and Lilli in the light. Good for your friend in getting a second opinion. Sending so much love to them and hopes for a very positive outcome.

@suspira44

i am sending Lilli healing right now.  Precious dog.

@laura-f

Thank you Laura.

It is comforting to feel that others understand me. This bipolar is a whole new world for me, only recently diagnosed in April and I am 56, almost 57 so I have been experiencing the world through a bipolar filter without knowing it for some time now. I also have PTSD & Anxiety that I deal with. I am healing up nicely, and doing all i can to support myself which includes visiting this forum, especially at night, and especially when anxious. 

Reading all the posts and sensing who you all are behind your monikers gives me some peace. I want to thank everyone who has written to me. It has made a difference. 

@ghandigirl

BIG HUGS & love & light to you and little Lilli! XOOXOOX ? 

thank you all so much. Susan will be so comforted to hear how much you care.

@suspira44, I am sending sweet Lilli and your friend, Susan, comforting and healing light.  They'll be in my special prayers on Friday.

@ghandigirl

wrote:

Reading all the posts and sensing who you all are behind your monikers gives me some peace. I want to thank everyone who has written to me. It has made a difference. 

This is where we all begin. It is part of the secret. If it relieves our anxiety to tell others how afraid we truly are, how anxiety overwhelms us over every newscast or state of the union or radio show or talk with a friend who is as angry or angrier than we do makes us think we are releasing negativity but then it comes back again and again and again what healing have we achieved? 

Is healing from feeling better about ourselves because others tell us we are loved, we are cared for, or that we are family isn't enough and we need to hear it over and over and more and more and more --were we ever truly receiving,  feeling, being the healed and holy self we yearn to be? This is a big part of each of our healing.

What is healing? 

Is going to a doctor healing? A bottle of cough syrup but the cough comes back next month. Were you healed or was it only placated for a bit? You soul feels ripped apart or your heart is in a million pieces, or your life is upside down. What is real? 

@ghandigirl

My heart knows that "You" are on the right path now. You went behind the words that others said for a bit of personal truth. Not in words in feelings in a tiny change in your energy. A beginning of feeling not just hearing that you are loved.

You went back a bit to source, to root. To who we are and who we are to you. That bit is the beginning of true power. What am I saying? What secret lies within mere words? 

Is healing for symptoms? Is it a nicotine patch dearest @brightopal for a pattern a response to pain or to fear or to the unknown? What do others offer us and why are doctors never enough? Who truly has the answers?  What have you learned so far from anyone here about anything that this "here" is truly about and truly for? From this site? This here and now as you come here like an addiction over and over and over. Truly what us it for?

About intuitions about the future about family about truth . If every feeling of gloom and doom has to be validated by others and called a hit or remind us we anticipate something about to happen what does that teach us? To me it creates constant desire to anticipate.To wait until the awful happens so we can feel "right". "All right" in control? What do you spend your time doing here and why?

I see anxieties increasing, OCD skyrocketing,  competition for likes and numbers of posts on all social media as developers increase their own needs for ratings and industry promotions.  Yet they are all dying now. All of the big ones. Is that who I am, you are, why did you truly come here, truly stay here? Truly want for the real you, here? 

Are we better for any of it if we only get worse after the doctor after the fix after the being right.

I am channeling my extremely intuitive acupuncture MD doctor now ...I laugh at the comparison now...who often resorted to stern Chinese wisdom giver when anyone was falling apart.

In acupuncture we are reminded to find the root. To go back to source.

What is it that truly lights up your heart and spirit? Is it praise, honor, respect,  understanding, being listened to, being heard? All of those but your need more perhaps. What makes you the very very very happiest and if you know it do you do it-and you doing it now? This afternoon? Tomorrow?  What if tomorrow were never to come. 

What would your very last wish have been? 

What is more of anything if we are only happy or satisfied or feel full for a tiny while before the gnawing hunger comes back?

What heals? Who heals? How does healing occur?

Can it, might it start with something as simple as going underneath the words to silence to feelings,  to emotions? 

If you are told over and over and over that you healed someone but you are not healed then who are "you "?

There is a saying everyone is a healer. Who are they the healer of? Who was healed. Did the negative emotions,  the illness, the disease come back.

The other 3 most intuitive teachers on my journey...younger than I who ended up being their teacher by the end of the circle..are all gone. 

All died from diseases they were treating others for. What did that teach me for the past 30 or 40 years? Guess if you can and share your own truth, your own secrets learned or even just barely sensed along the way.

Instead of suplicating can we pontificate our own healings and even a new beginning for someone else ? 

 And what if that someone else was only us-- ourselves all along? 

@michele-b

I am not sure I actually understood your post. I did feel though the urgency, intensity of what you were trying to teach. 

For me, the older I get, the more I realize how fragile and fleeting this life is. I wrote last year, "Life is Fraglie. Live Gently." I don't remember what caused me to write that, but it is absolutely the truth and the way I try to live every single day. Being gentle to myself and others.

I find that every time I counsel someone, I am also counseling myself  and often I hear messages that must surely have been meant for me, even though not specifically directed to me. 

Today two of my Art students spoke contrary truths. One said, "Nothing is perfect." 

The other said, "Everyone is perfect."

and I think they are both right.

For myself, although I have a bit of a low grade depression, my basic nature is optimistic. I was visited by a dog I didn't know today who sat near me and licked my face several times, not wanting to leave my side, not responding to it's owner, to stay near me for a bit. This stranger of a dog felt my sadness and comforted me. And this is just one of the beautiful things that happened to me today. 

As tempted as I am to feel disillusioned and disappointed, I find myself searching out moments of beauty. like the comments of my students. like the dog who read my heart.

I wish all of you here, something beautiful. Some little moment, word, or action that helps you to feel happy and whole. I thank you for being my friends, for sitting with me in comfort, like that dog today.

Love,

Ghandigirl

@ghandigirl,

Wow … such a lovely and insightful message.  I hope that you can see what an incredible person you are – a strong, kind, wise, courageous, loving soul.  I feel blessed to know you and call you friend.   You are truly a gift to this world.

Love,
Deetoo

@ghandigirl

Beautiful,  beautiful, beautiful.

You spoke your perfect truth from a whole heart.

And the wonderful dog knew you and your spirit. It is a holy moment to be known by another spirit like that ??

Hi everyone. As I discussed on this thread awhile back, I am now writing a narrative of my dark night of the soul from 3 years ago. I've been engaged in the task for a little over a week, and I'd say that I'm about 55% done. It's really hard, slow-going work. But I know I must complete the job. As it turns out, I haven't exorcised the weight of all of that darkness that attached to my soul, and just calling back my memories of that time and writing them down takes a lot of strenuous effort. I've felt my energy and exuberance flagging and my thoughts becoming more brooding for several days now, to the point where I can't meditate or talk to my spirit guides before bed (which I usually try to do every night). So please, if anyone can send me energizing light, that would be appreciated.

The old me wouldn't have thought to ask for help like I am now. I would have kept pushing on alone and come up with inadequate half measures for conserving my energy and keeping dark thoughts at bay. Or I would have unhelpfully approached my problems solely as a test of individual willpower: "This is my burden to carry and I can't ask assistance from anyone." I've known for the past few months that I can call upon this community for aid when I need it, but something happened to me this afternoon that brought into focus this new reality of mutual support.

It was a very gloomy, rainy day here in the Bay State, and I had more trouble than usual focusing at work (I was also becoming unreasonably irritated with my colleagues). At about 3 p.m. I'd finally had enough of staring at a computer screen and stepped outside onto the porch at the entrance to the office. I needed fresh air, and because the porch is covered by an overhang, I wouldn't get wet. The building in which I work is in the middle of a nature preserve and is surrounded by woodland (mostly scrub oak and pitch pine). Usually when I take breaks like this I'll stand/sit in the daylight and soak up as much solar radiation as I can get. But because it was raining, I leaned against the porch railing and practiced Pramayana breathing (which was made easier by the fact that the sound of raindrops hitting the uncovered portions of the porch sounded like binaural beats). I visualized that all of the trees and rocks and shrubs nearby were sending me healing vapors and their own soul essences with each in-breath, while with each out-breath I visualized a white light expanding from my chest until it filled my entire body. Eventually I imagined the entire landscape as nourishing my soul, including the water and sea creatures of Cape Cod Bay, which was only 200 yards to my left. 

I can't say I experienced a supernova of healing or a sudden epiphany from the 10 minutes I spent outside breathing like this. But I did better appreciate that all of the plant, animal, and mineral beings in my vicinity wanted me to heal just as much as I wanted to protect them for their own sake and right to "being." That my appreciation for the peace they offered me was matched by their appreciation of my mindful presence among them.

This experience reminded me that, for the first time in many years, I'm now opening up to this same reciprocity among actual people by participating in this forum. So, like @ghandigirl, I'm thankful for all of you and for blessing me with your wisdom, understanding, and especially your vulnerability. Because, yes, when I find myself counseling people in this community, I am also counseling myself, and this virtuous cycle of healing others while also healing ourselves has the power to change the world.

@coyote

Heart to heart. Sorrow to sorrow. Beauty between us all. Oh how we feel you and hold the treasure that is you to all of us now. We are breathing in and breathing out to your binaural beat of today's rain.?

I felt it all before I opened this tonight. And a bit ago read the following in a book I am re-reading.

"Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
You will not find me in stupas, not in Indian shrine

rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:

not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding
around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but
vegetables.
When you really look for me, you will see me

instantly,
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
It is the breath inside the breath."

Kabir

@coyote and @ghandigirl -- Thank you beyond words for your wisdom. I am reminded to stop and find something to savor each day. Some moment, a connection. A dog, the woods in the rain. 

@bright-opal

 I am happy to pray for you as you overcome your smoking habit.  You are such a dear soul and I am sending you love, healing light and the self assurance that you can kick this.  Much love to you.